Yellow
by BlackBloodedMagic
Summary: 'As you read this it must seem to you, for all intents and purposes, that I have moved on. I am free. I have gotten away. I haven't. And maybe that's all that matters.' Songfic! A FanFiction from Nia's point of view just after the end events of Candor.


**This was originally written for a long Candor story I've been planning that may or may not be published called 'Who You Are.' I've decided to post this for numerous reasons and hope it stands up on its own.**

**I looked at the sound track Pam used to write the book and I became addicted to this song. It's Yellow by Coldplay. :) Please listen as you read.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the song or the book, I swear.**

**Please enjoy.**

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**YELLOW**

**Welcome to Candor**

_**Where we're always listening**_

_Antonia Silva_

_**Look at the stars  
Look how they shine for you  
And everything you do  
Yeah they were all yellow**_

My hands smooth over cool sheets and I can feel my blankets wrapped around my toes. I'm comfy. Too comfy; I can't sleep.

Not that I can sleep any more; there's no message on my new set for that. It's a shame really: I have bad insomnia.

I study the ceiling above my head. It's completely black outside and all the lights are off but the red light of my alarm clock illuminates the room. My eyes sting from lack of sleep and tiredness as I try to create patterns and shapes from the cracks in the ceiling. It's hard: my affinity with art isn't as strong now. It's getting better, though. Slowly. Sometimes I'll be looking at a picture, or I'll try to pick up a pencil and draw, and all I'll hear is '_art is useless' _whispered very quietly in the back of my head. It won't be as loud as last time or as strong and if I wanted to I could make some art... but the motivation will have gone and it all seems pointless.

_Useless._

The patter of rain from outside is like a soft lullaby, which when I was a kid would have sent me straight to sleep. It doesn't work now. Or maybe I just won't let it.

I roll over tirelessly; the sheets tangling around my body. I sigh. I'm not going to sleep tonight. It is only Saturday though: no school tomorrow. I'd like to say I wouldn't go to school if it _was_ Monday tomorrow... but I would go. The old Nia wouldn't have.

Then again the old me did what she wanted, though, to be fair, what she wanted was just what her parents didn't want. I suppose it was what I wanted in some ways but I suppose then it really wasn't.

Now? I have no idea what I want; I have no idea what I _really _want.

_**I came along  
I wrote a song for you  
And all the things you do  
And it was called yellow**_

My hands automatically reach for the headphones by my bed; it's _programmed_ into me now to constantly listen to my headphones – and _yes_, I understand the irony in that statement. When I'm not busy or when I don't have anything to do, they are on my ears. I've got back-ups everywhere, on memory-stick, CD, computer, iPod – I'll never stop listening for long: _I can't. _

Just another choice taken away from me.

Sometimes I almost feel _violated._

I can feel the anger in my gut, bubbling, rising; it's almost like an infection spreading through my body.

I mean, it's _fine_ for the people who _choose, _who _want_ to be mindless robots... but for the rest of us, the rest of us who are _forced_ and brainwashed to be like _that. _It's _not. _

It's _not _fine.

I hate they way they wanted to control my life, like I was a robot and not a person with my own feelings and thoughts and emotions and life... I mean, to get me to throw all my art in a bin... I treasured it; I loved it. They were trying to stop me from being a person with emotions.

And taking away so much of me that when they took all that, I didn't care because I had _nothing _to express anyway.

And that is _not _fine because it's not.

It's just not.

Sure I was perfect. I'd have aced school; I'd have got into the best college. I might even have been happy.

But I wouldn't have been me.

Don't they understand what it's like after? (You're not meant to know though, are you?) After you know you had no control over anything and you didn't even realise it? It's like, what if, _even now_, I wasn't doing what I wanted because I wanted to do it, and I was just doing it because they wanted me to do it? What if I just _thought_ I wanted to do it?

What's worse is that when I was there I hadn't even fought all them foreign thoughts - they had just seemed _right. _All of my choices were gone and_ I didn't even know. I didn't even fight._

It makes you doubt everything. If The Messages can make Mandi care for Sherman, they can make me care for Oscar and_ I wouldn't even know. _What if The Messages told me to care for Oscar? What if The new Messages tell me to _love_ Oscar? (Was that even _love?_) What if they tell me to believe they're not telling me?

What then? What can I do when I can't even trust my own mind?

I can't forgive that. I can't forgive Candor for that.

But I think I can forgive Oscar.

_**So then I took my turn  
Oh what a thing to have done  
And it was all yellow**_

I stagger out of bed and into the kitchen; I'm at a foster home. I've been staying here for a few months now. I had no other choice when I got out of Candor; I had to go somewhere I could guarantee no one would ring my parents and I'm not quite a legal adult yet. Otherwise they would know where I was, and who knew what Candor would do so I wouldn't tell about The Messages.

My old friends weren't an option; I would need somewhere to stay permanently. My aunt was bound to tell my parents as soon as she received a distressed phone call from them if I stayed there so it had to be social services. It is only a small foster home. A middle-aged couple look after me but I have a okay room with a bathroom. It is a homely kind of place and not a methodical camp for the unwanted. There is only one other kid here at the moment and my fosterers are pretty cool. I would say normal, but a few months ago the idea of normal was completely different.

_**Your skin  
Oh yeah your skin and bones  
Turn into something beautiful  
You know you know I love you so  
You know I love you so**_

I had to be enrolled in a High School and I will graduate. Thanks to the still resounding messages in my head school work isn't a problem. I am hoping to get into an art college afterwards; if I can manage to pick up a pencil again that is.

Social Services have got in touch with my parents but they didn't have to give any information away about my whereabouts - it was something to do with my age and confidentiality. They don't know why I'm here - that's probably why, actually, because, for all they know, my parents could be violent child abusers; they can't take the risk and I'm not saying anything, not whilst it protects me.

I am also given a small allowance which I top up with my job at the weekends, I have a couple of friends, and I see some of my old ones occasionally.

It seems, for all intents and purposes, that I have moved on. I am free. I have gotten away.

I haven't.

"**I'll come back if you don't make it," I say. "I'll save you."**

_**I swam across  
I jumped across for you  
Oh what a thing to do**_

The soft patter of the rain interrupts my thoughts as I slip the cool headphones over my head, the headset will make sure they won't come off when – if - I sleep. I turn the volume right down so I can barely hear it. It won't matter: subliminal messages are on a frequency my ears won't hear but my brain will. And it will obey – because I want it to? Or despite that I want it to?

_**'Cause you were all yellow  
I drew a line  
I drew a line for you  
Oh what a thing to do  
And it was all yellow**_

I can almost feel the soft press of lips against my own, stolen kisses in a forbidden place when the music comes on. Reminding me with a deep ache of someone I let down, someone who I let slip right through my fingers, someone who tried to help me who I pushed away.

Someone who I feel I owe a lot, even if I don't know what I feel or why I feel it.

_**Your skin  
Oh yeah your skin and bones  
Turn into something beautiful  
And you know  
For you I'd bleed myself dry  
For you I'd bleed myself dry**_

I set it so the tracks will play on a continuous loop through the night, repairing me, fixing me, keeping me normal. Keeping me, _me. _Or not me. Who is me? Which girl is me? Because I don't think I can get her back.

I take a few painkillers with a glass of water before curling back into bed.

I only started remembering everything gradually. even though when I left I thought I knew most of it. I thought I had remembered everything. I hadn't. There was so much of my own life that I couldn't even remember; I had been wiped and reprogrammed like I was a machine.

Now I think I have everything back but I don't know and _I hate that. _I know I was angry with him. He'd been messing with my mind, but...well he did tell me about The Messages... didn't he? I just didn't listen so is it my fault? Or should _he_ have _kept_ telling _me_? Should he have _made me listen_ to him? Well he did do that too, didn't he...? I just mean, he shouldn't have made me forget The Messages after he told me about them. I mean, w_hy_ did he do that? _Why?_

I sound like I'm angry at him.

I'm not now though. Not after what he gave up.

_I just don't understand._

_Anything._

I mean, how can you be angry with someone who gave up themselves, everything they are, to help you?

You can't.

You can't be angry.

_**It's true  
Look how they shine for you  
Look how they shine for you  
Look how they shine for  
Look how they shine for you  
Look how they shine for you  
Look how they shine**_

_But you can be confused.__**  
**_  
I have to save him. I have to save him so much it's like there's another message on the CD telling me, but there isn't.

That's the one thing I'm sure of because he didn't think he'd have to stay behind. He didn't want to, why would he? After all that rebelling he decides to have his mind wiped? _I don't believe it._

_And maybe that's all that matters._

"**Don't ever come back," he tells me. "Promise." **(It's not a question.)

"**I can't promise," I say. **(I can though. I just don't want to.)

"**I love you," He tells me. **(And he does.)

I don't say it back because _I didn't know _if I did_. _Isn't it bad to love without permission? Isn't it wrong?

It must be wrong. Otherwise, _this, all of this, _would not have happened.

Oscar would still be safe, still be _normal _or as close to it as he could manage_, _if he hadn't risked _everything _he was for me. Sure I'd be a _zombie _but I wouldn't know. (Now that's scary.)

I mean, what's love done? It's just ruined _everything._

I mean look at my parents, the people who were _meant_ to look after me, and nurture me and _love_ me. They had got sick of their only child disappointing them so in their _love_ they took me to Candor for a different model, they let some creep wipe my mind and fill it until I wasn't even me. Until I wasn't even their daughter... but that was _fine_ because _at least_ I was perfect. At least they could _love _me now.

No messages can get you to do that to your daughter and no messages did get them to go there in the first place; it was some weird idea of love, right?

No messages made Oscar's Dad do that to him. You could say it was some weird misplaced sense of _love._

But really that's complete and utter _bullshit._

For so many reasons but mainly just because it is.

Oscar didn't do all that for me for the fun of it. He _loved_ me. (I hope he still does, but I doubt he even _remembers _me.) And what he did _helped _me, didn't it? Not hindered me.

And all them stupid _Messages _telling me what to do, telling me how to act, telling me how to be, telling me _who _to be, well they can all just – _don't swear _– Piss. The. Hell. Off.

_I_ do what _I _want because _I _want to.

And I want to save you Oscar so I will.

And I think it's because I love you.

I believe it's because I love you.

_And maybe that's all that matters._

_**Look at the stars  
Look how they shine for you  
And all the things that you do**_

_... And it was all yellow_

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**Please review, reviews make me very happy, _constructive _criticism is always welcome. =D**

**BlackBloodedMagic**


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